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Seattle shocker: some fans want Bavasi canned

Firebillbavasi.com. Contains petition, etc, and a logo that I suspect will get them a Cease & Desist pretty quickly.

Except as an exercise in venting, this is pointless. He’s almost certainly going to be fired if the team doesn’t turn around this year, in part because the powers that be know the fan base is discontented, but also because they’re going to have to heap blame somewhere and the chances they’ll consider themselves as candidates is somewhere between naught and zero.

And if the team turns around, wins 90 games and heads to the playoffs, there’s not going to be any widespread fan support for firing him anymore.

I have a new wallpaper on my PC (intellectual property rights be damned)! (Right mouse click on one of the Fire Bavasi compasses, select “view background image”; then right-click that image and either select “Set as Wallpaper” or “Save Image As…”. Note: I use Firefox but assume IE has a similar process.) I cannot stomach Bavasi’s decision to let Ryan Franklin walk.

University of Florida football fans were influential in the termination of Zook’s employment, with the internet crowd leading the way. The website FireRonZook.com was up and running BEFORE Zook ever coached a game at Florida.

leetinsleyfanclub on
January 19th, 2006 10:16 am

In general, I view Bavasi as a very competent GM. Granted, the win/loss record in his two years have been an embarrassment. The question is, how much of that is Bavasi, and how much of it was created by either his predecessors or his meddling bosses?

On the plus side, I think he has done an excellent job of restocking the organization with young arms, he signed Betancourt (who may be a great one), signed Sexson and Beltre (middling results, but showed Seattle could sign big name free agents), re-signed Moyer, and signed Ibanez and Guardado (solid players by anyone’s standards).

On the downside, he traded Freddy Garcia for what appears to be mediocre talent, gave away Carlos Guillen for nothing, and signed busts Pokey Reese, Scott Spiezio, Aaron Sele, and Rich Aurilia.

This year’s moves cannot be judged yet although on paper they certainly are not awe-inspiring. The jury is also still out on the Randy Winn trade as well, as the end results of that trade, Carvajal and Foppert, have not pitched for the M’s yet.

All told, his record of signing free agents looks mediocre at best, while his record on trades looks pretty poor at this point. Despite this, I think Bavasi needs to be given some time to let his system of drafting/player development take hold. He inherited an old team and a bare farm system. This combination has really hamstrung Bavasi. He has had almost no ability to make trades since no one wants what the M’s have to offer. With almost no major league ready players in the system, to plug holes he has been forced to overpay for average free agents. With the exception of the Guillen trade(a horrific deal)I am not sure anyone else could have done much better with what he has had to work with.

The signing of controversial figures like Carl Everett and Matt Lawton indicate to me that Bavasi may have wrested more power away from his bosses who previously would have blocked the moves. For the first two years, I think he was operating under the shadow of Lincoln and Armstrong, who wanted good players like Garcia and Guillen gone, replaced by more marketable “high character” guys like Aurelia, Sele, and Spiezio.

The failures of the past two years may have been necessary for the M’s to ever get to the promised land. The arrogance of past success is finally gone and baseball people are finally being allowed to make baseball decisions. I say give Bavasi through 2007 and then let’s see where we are.

Evan on
January 19th, 2006 10:18 am

I cannot stomach BavasiÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s decision to let Ryan Franklin walk.

That’s your complaint? That Bavasi non-tendered Franklin?

Russ on
January 19th, 2006 10:23 am

Is FrankL kidding??? Please say that #5 is a joker.

Evan on
January 19th, 2006 10:24 am

The jury is also still out on the Randy Winn trade as well

How? We know all the players on both sides. We’re judging Bavasi unfairly if we wait for the players to develop before deciding if the trade was good, because then we’re evaluating the trade based on information Bavasi couldn’t have had.

That’s the same reason you’re completely wrong about the Garcia trade. Garcia was coming up on free agency, he ended up getting a deal for more than he was worth, so we wouldn’t have wanted to keep him. In return we got a major-league catcher and a top outfield prospect, plus a throw-in. That Olivo wouldn’t hit here wasn’t knowable at the time of the trade, so you can’t criticize Bavasi for now knowing it.

nickpdx on
January 19th, 2006 10:26 am

Bud should have picked an acronym that wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t already being used in sports.

How about Bud Selig’s Super Hardball International Tournament.

leetinsleyfanclub on
January 19th, 2006 10:52 am

#9: So how would you assess the Randy Winn trade? Certainly, based on Winn’s torrid second half in SF, this looks like a total trainwreck. But what if Foppert and Carvajal end up being good ML pitchers? I’m sure the deals for those players were made based on each’s potential. Bavasi traded proven players for prospects. If neither pan out, then the trades were failures. That’s why I said wait and see.

Also, I agree with you that Bavasi HAD to deal Garcia for a multitude of reasons. I just think that now, with the benefit of hindsight, it can be said that he didn’t get enough for him. At the time, it looked like a potentially good deal. Now, it appears that only Jeremy Reed has a shot to be a major contributor and his first season with the bat was disappointing to say the least. And he was advertised as being a pure hitter. Olivo stunk and Morse is relegated to a utility role (if that)as a man without a position. It’s not Bavasi’s fault Olivo was a bust but just the same Bavasi must be accountable – he gave up a good player to acquire him.

I agree that you cannot possibly know how a player will perform when you trade for him but the only way you can judge the trade is by looking at a player’s performance once he plays at the Major League Level. If you are going to say that a GM can’t be fairly judged because he couldn’t possibly know how a trade would turn out then I guess no GM should ever be held accountable for their trades.

Adam S on
January 19th, 2006 11:03 am

5 and 6 are a good example of why Bavasi is done after this year.

I think Bavasi’s best moves by far are Beltre and the Garcia trade. And getting rid of Franklin and signing Lawton shows wisdom that has not been demonstrated by the FO in prior years and get high marks from me. Yet there’s clearly a segment of the fan base that thinks even his good moves are bad ones. I understand the casual fan sentiment that we traded Freddy Garcia for nothing (I hope Reed puts an end to that this season) but don’t quite follow the issue with Franklin.

Not mentioned here is that a number of fans will be excited that we got a big-name starting pitcher and locked up Willie for two years, which is the reverse.

My only real beef with Bavasi are the Washburn and Everett contracts. It’s so bad that it shows he simply doesn’t understand how to evaluate the performance and spend the payroll. Other moves I disagree with, but that would be true for just about any general manager.

Evan on
January 19th, 2006 11:04 am

Wrong. They should be held accountable for moves that look bad at the time they were made. Like the Guillen trade. Or the Spiezio signing. Or the Everett signing.

I further disagree that you can only know how a player will perform once you’ve seen him at the major league level. Players aren’t that different from each other; their minor league performances are often projectable.

The Randy Winn trade was a good trade. He was a player we didn’t need (we had 3 better outfielders), and we traded him for a former top prospect coming off of a well-documented surgery with a predictable recovery curve and a catcher who was a vast upgrade for us behind the plate. We turned something useless to us (Winn) into something useful (JoeJessica) and something with a ton of potential (Foppert).

eponymous coward on
January 19th, 2006 11:14 am

Also, I agree with you that Bavasi HAD to deal Garcia for a multitude of reasons. I just think that now, with the benefit of hindsight, it can be said that he didnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t get enough for him. At the time, it looked like a potentially good deal.

Which is:

a: not how you evaluate trades, since you don’t have the benefit of hindsight when you make these decisions,

b: not necessarily a fair assessment, since Reed’s not exactly the first major leaguer to struggle a bit his first year in the majors, and Morse may have some utility as well.

I agree that you cannot possibly know how a player will perform when you trade for him but the only way you can judge the trade is by looking at a playerÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s performance once he plays at the Major League Level.

You’re seriously undervaluing the ability of statistical projection systems to give you good hints about player development. It’s not perfect, it does miss stuff, but minor league stats can tell you useful things about prospects.

If you are going to say that a GM canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t be fairly judged because he couldnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t possibly know how a trade would turn out then I guess no GM should ever be held accountable for their trades.

I don’t think anyone seriously thought Guillen for Random Garbage From Detroit was a decent trade- it was pretty clearly a “get this guy out of here, no matter what, we want to sign Rich Aurilia” trade. THAT was pretty clear looking at the players involved at the time- Santiago was a trainwreck and Gonzalez was in A ball, fergawdsakes.

So, actually…no, don’t agree with that assertion, either.

anotherjeff on
January 19th, 2006 11:15 am

Ummm Freddy Garcia was going to be a free agent. Spinning him to get some prospects was totally worth it. The season was a lost cause. At the end of the season Garcia would have walked anyway. What would have been gained in that scenario? I’d make that trade over and over again.

Randy Winn? We all loved they guy, but show me a stretch where he ever played in Seattle the way he did the last couple of months in SF. He was not a “Giant” loss in the outfield either.

I dunno…What is certain is that Bavasi inherited a ship wreck in progress. I’m not going to defend ever move made, or justify the ones we wish he had and didn’t. But I think all of this is kind of foolish.

Ryan Franklin? Am I supposed to laugh at that? If I were a GM, I’d non-tender him just so I didn’t have to hear him whine.

eponymous coward on
January 19th, 2006 11:18 am

Oh, and while I’m debunking assertions…

In general, I view Bavasi as a very competent GM.

So…if he’s a competent GM, where are his division titles? He’s had plenty of time in the AL West to beat out three other teams for a shot at a division title. The closest he’s gotten has been his rookie year in Anaheim (1995).

Or is competent shorthand for “don’t expect him to beat out Billy Beane anytime soon”?

eponymous coward on
January 19th, 2006 11:24 am

My assessment of Bavasi, BTW, is that as a GM, he’s a great farm system director. Unfortunately, his tenure in Anaheim and Seattle is likely a demonstration of the Peter Principle as applied to Major League Baseball.

Smegmalicious on
January 19th, 2006 11:30 am

Man, Bavasi is so hot and cold. He does something good like signing Sexson and balances it with signing Pokey. He signs Jojima, then gets Washburn. I love some of his moves and hate others.

leetinsleyfanclub on
January 19th, 2006 11:33 am

Maybe I just don’t get it. I thought you judged decision-making prowess based on measurable results stemming from those decisions rather than how something looked or felt when it was decided upon.

Yes, of course you make the trade based on your knowledge at the time. That doesn’t make it a good trade. It may LOOK good. Not until some results are seen can it be truly judged good or bad.

I guess then that the Larry Andersen for Jeff Bagwell deal was a good one for the Red Sox since Bagwell wasn’t considered a top talent. And Ken Phelps for Jay Buhner was a proud moment for the Yankees since Buhner was a flailing minor leaguer. Of course, we can’t forget the Jeff Cirillo deal.

All of these may have looked good at the time but ultimately were not. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have made them. I’m saying that the GM that did has to live with those blemishes on their record and their record suffers because of it.

Bill Bavasi is no different than any other GM. He does what he thinks is best at the time and has to live with the results. He won’t get a free pass because the move looked good at the time.

That only makes sense if we believe that GMs have some special precognative ability the rest of us lack.

Let’s say we’m playing poker. You bluff at a pot, and I see right through you and raise you all in.

Since I have the vastly better hand, I made a good move. That you suck out and hit two runners to make a quad doesn’t mean my decision was bad. It means I was unlucky, but you shouldn’t judge my poker skills based on luck.

leetinsleyfanclub on
January 19th, 2006 11:55 am

#16: Bavasi was instrumental in building the Angel’s World Series team and subsequent playoff teams. Several of the players he drafted or acquired starred on those teams. I believe he is more of a long-term builder than a short-term fix. Pat Gillick is a short term fix. It will take longer to see results from Bavasi. People want results now but his strength is building a farm system and it will take awhile to reap the benefits. The question is, with the payroll he has, and the results to date, will he be around to see what he built?

Mat on
January 19th, 2006 12:07 pm

“SoÃ¢â‚¬Â¦if heÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s a competent GM, where are his division titles?”

I don’t think this is a great way to judge a GM. There’s a lot that goes into winning division titles that is somewhat out of the control of a GM. (For that matter, Theo Epstein won a World Series as a GM without ever winning a division title, so the division title distinction seems rather arbitrary.) Terry Ryan went 7 seasons at Minnesota before he won his first division title, and then ripped off 3 division titles in a row. Of course, one could argue that his division titles aren’t worth as much as those in the AL West, because there wasn’t any competition as stiff as the A’s over there.

Even looking at the way you want to judge GMs, you are saying that we should judge their decisions, not their results (“Which is…not how you evaluate trades, since you donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have the benefit of hindsight when you make these decisions”), indicating that luck plays a part in how well a GM’s decisions turn out, and ultimately how many division titles they can win.

eponymous coward on
January 19th, 2006 12:16 pm

I guess then that the Larry Andersen for Jeff Bagwell deal was a good one for the Red Sox since Bagwell wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t considered a top talent. And Ken Phelps for Jay Buhner was a proud moment for the Yankees since Buhner was a flailing minor leaguer. Of course, we canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t forget the Jeff Cirillo deal.

Again… you are ignoring the use of any statistical evaluation tools. Jeff Bagwell had a minor league OBP over .400 when he was traded from the Red Sox, so if they didn’t think he was very good, they were being idiots (keep in mind that minor league stats were regularly discounted in the 1980’s, prime example being Edgar, so this wasn’t uncommon- but that trade AT THE TIME was clearly stupid). Jay Buhner had a career minor league SLG of .508, with lots of walks- it should have been pretty obvious he was going to be good. And Jeff Cirillo wasn’t hitting outside of Coors Field, which was also apparent in his stats.

Seriously, do you think minor league stats are completely useless for assessing talent, or what? Are you saying we can’t evaluate prospects based on minor league performance, and make reasonable guesses as to major league potential? Because if you are- you’ve missed the last 20-30 years of sabremetrics.

Bavasi was instrumental in building the AngelÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s World Series team and subsequent playoff teams. Several of the players he drafted or acquired starred on those teams. I believe he is more of a long-term builder than a short-term fix.

Thus my comment about being a good farm system director (which he also did for the Angels during the time you are mentioning, BTW). I am less impressed with his decision-making ability as a GM on issues such as free agent signings and roster contruction. Keep in mind that it’s also easier to build a farm system when you’re drafting high as opposed to low.

Yes, having a farm system that produces talent is, unquestionably, the single MOST important factor in having a successful MLB franchise. The thing is you if you flub enough roster decisions, free agent signings and trades, you can easily piddle away the strength that is a good farm system. in the end, you have to walk AND chew gum at the same time, and I don’t think Bavasi has proven he can in 7 years as a GM.

eponymous coward on
January 19th, 2006 12:27 pm

Even looking at the way you want to judge GMs, you are saying that we should judge their decisions, not their results (Ã¢â‚¬ÂWhich isÃ¢â‚¬Â¦not how you evaluate trades, since you donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have the benefit of hindsight when you make these decisionsÃ¢â‚¬Â), indicating that luck plays a part in how well a GMÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s decisions turn out, and ultimately how many division titles they can win

Right, but the dude has had eight years as a GM, and a lifetime winning percentage of his teams are WELL below .500. Some of his decisions had good arguments against them at the time he made them (Mo Vaughn, anyone? Rich Aurilia? Carlos Guillen? Aaron Sele? No backup for an often injured Pokey Reese? Carl Everett? Jarrod Washburn?).

I essentially agree with the sentiment here. I also don’t think Bill Bavasi is likely to be the guy who fixes the problems Dave identified in the latter half of his post.

Of course trades are judged on results. And of course trades are judged by the information we have at the time. These are not contradictory ideas. It’s the difference between debating whether a trade was good or bad, vs whether a trade was smart or stupid.

When a trade is made, we can argue about whether it was smart or not, but time is the judge of whether it was a good trade. And if we find that most of our trades end up being bad ones, the fact that we had what seemed to be smart reasons at the time is not an impregnable defense: we may well need to re-evaluate what’s smart and what isn’t.

It’s perfectly reasonable to say that the jury is out on the Winn trade. The trade was made with a balance of knowledge and risks. Reasonable people can disagree about the weight of those risks. That’s debating whether it was a smart trade. Foppert is obviously a risk. If he doesn’t come through, you can’t dismiss criticism of the trade by saying there was good reason to make the trade. There was good reason not to as well, after all. If you refuse to judge any trade by the results, all you’re really saying is that you’re always right, and time can’t prove you wrong.

CCW on
January 19th, 2006 12:57 pm

#26… Fine, distinguish between “smart” and “good”, but, using your lingo, whether a trade was “good” or not is not a reflection on the GM, which is what we’re talking about. Presumably, if our GM makes “smart” trades, they will turn out to be “good”. If they don’t, that isn’t his fault. Similarly, if a “dumb” trade turns out to be “good”, that’s just “luck”, and I wouldn’t count on it happening again.

Evan on
January 19th, 2006 1:30 pm

I can’t look at Gillick’s work in Toronto and say he was just a short-term guy. He was incredibly innovative for the period.

Actually, we didn’t all love the guy. I’m on record as one who has never loved Randy Winn (even for a minute or for one very special evening) 🙂

CCW on
January 19th, 2006 3:04 pm

Scraps, I completely agree that, at some point, it is fair to evaluate a GM’s resume based in part upon the results of his trades. However, we’re certainly nowhere near that point with Bavasi in Seattle. You need many years and many data points to do that, and no one here was even trying to perform that kind of analysis with Bavasi.

Jim Thomsen on
January 19th, 2006 3:35 pm

We can evaluated decisions by results … when the results are known. Which is why it’s silly to evaluate the Randy Winn deal now, because there are results yet to be known Will Winn crash back to earth? Will Foppert emerge? Will Carvajal be Sherrill or Thornton?). Same with the Freddy Garcia deal.

Evan on
January 19th, 2006 4:41 pm

But we know whether Randy Winn’s torrid run or subsequent crashing could reasonably have been expected at the time of the trade, and that’s all that matters.

If Randy Winn was replaced by a super-robot from outerspace just after we traded him, and he goes on to break every batting record ever known, does that mean we made the worst decision ever in trading him, or that we were just staggeringly unlucky?

Any universal maxim has to hold up under extreme examples. Mine does.

ballgame on
January 19th, 2006 4:50 pm

Bavasi should be canned for keep Ryan Franklin’s giant wall covering up at Safeco. That should have been outta there the day they non-tendered him. It is still up! Just drove by it.

CCW on
January 19th, 2006 5:05 pm

Evan, what if you performed an analysis of 20 years of a GM’s transactions, and it showed that, all in all, he got more than he gave up in trades? You could do that, for example, if you looked at Dollars / WARP of all the players involved in that GM’s transactions. Wouldn’t you agree that such an analysis would be a good measure of a GM’s performance? That’s an analysis based purely on hindsight. If it turned out that all his deals, at the time, looked dumb, but he still was getting a good returns when added up, I think you’d have to conclude that the GM was good at his trade.

Anyway, my point is simply that it is theoretically possible to evaluate a GM’s skills based on hindsight, if you have enough data. However, none of us have that kind of data, and such an analysis doesn’t even make sense given what we’re trying to do here, i.e. evaluate the deals Bavasi has made recently to determine if he’s a sharp GM in today’s MLB GM world.

John D. on
January 19th, 2006 5:07 pm

RE: TRADE EVALUATION (see various #s) – When I first started following Baseball, one of the sport’s cliches was that you couldn’t evaluate a trade properly until a year after the trade. That notion no longer holds.
Some think that the evaluation is based on the conditions at the time of the trade. Others think that the evaluation is based on the results of the trade.
There doesn’t seem to be much sense in people continuing to talk about evaluating trades based on their opinion of the way trades should be evaluated.
So let’s talk about something else.

CCW on
January 19th, 2006 5:09 pm

As has been discussed in the past few threads, there’s nothing to discuss right now but the discussion itself. Sad, but true.

Adam S on
January 19th, 2006 5:35 pm

Some think that the evaluation is based on the conditions at the time of the trade. Others think that the evaluation is based on the results of the trade.

I most of us agree it’s some of both or somewhere it between. The problem with evaluating at trade at the time is if it’s veteran for prospects, you may not know how good the prospects are. The problem with hindsight is bad decisions can have good results and vice versa.

If four years ago the Mariners had traded Ryan Anderson for a low-level prospect, it would have fine in retrospect (since Anderson never amounted to anything), but that wouldn’t change the fact that giving away your top pitching prospect for nothing is a bad trade. Dave (I think) always likes to say if you close your eyes and walk across a busy street in rush hour and don’t get hit by a car, does that mean it wasn’t a bad decision.

Mat on
January 19th, 2006 5:48 pm

“…if a GM makes a number of trades you thought looked good at the time, and a large majority of them turn out badly, wouldnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t you re-evaluate your approach to trades in the future?”

I would re-evaluate, but I might not decide to change anything. The problem with trades is that few GMs ever stick around long enough for you to say anything about “a large majority.” If I can see some reason for why those trades turned out wrong, then I’d need to change my strategy. But sometimes, it might just be bad luck.

If I flip a fair coin 10 times, and call heads each time, but it lands tails each time, it doesn’t mean that my strategy of calling heads was a bad strategy. If you want to have a good GM going forward, you should be more interested in his strategies and priorities in acquiring players than in the results he’s had in the past, which are subject to a number of things that are out of his control.

Badperson on
January 19th, 2006 7:28 pm

I think there is a difference between a GM being good at his job and a GM having empirically done a good job, although in reality I don’t know if the two differ very often. It may well be better to be lucky than good.

In some sense though, I think you have to judge a GM at least partially according to hindsight, because you can never know all the opportunities a GM has had to do things to make his team better. Someone like Billy Beane always seems to be able to come up with valuable players for peanuts. If Bavasi never seems to do this, can we not hold it against him even though we don’t have any specific deals in mind that he should have made?

Obviously if a GM signs a bunch of superstars for peanuts and they all get hit by a meteor, you can’t hold it against him. But it’s not all that hard to separate bad luck from failure to do anything special.

I think what scraps is getting at, and I agree with him on, is that perhaps our confidence in the knowledge we have at the time is overstated in some cases.

It’s correct to judge a GM’s abilities by the logic they displayed in making a move rather than the results of the move. But there’s a lot of gray area in deciding whether the logic is sound or not. We argued vehemently that the Raul Ibanez signing was a bad one, and that the M’s failed the logic test by arguing that he’d avoid decline because his swing was perfectly suited for Safeco Field.

They were completely right, and we whiffed on that one. Ibanez avoided decline, and a large part of his value has been the fact that he is ideally suited to hitting at Safeco.

In retrospect, we have to look back and say “we were wrong”, not that the best information available at the time supported us and we got unlucky. The M’s saw things that we didn’t see, and they get credit for that.

There’s a place in evaluating decision making for both retrospective and logical analysis. As much as I hate the Jarrod Washburn signing, we have to admit that it’s possible that the M’s know something we don’t know, and that he’s going to continue to lead the league in stranding runners while posting ERAs in the 3.50 range for the rest of the contract. If that happens, we can’t immediately write it off as a bad decision turning out well by luck. It could be that, but it also could be that we made an incorrect evaluation of the facts available at the time.

Basic summary: We don’t have good enough tools to judge a GM that we should speak with absolute certainty in the face of contradictary results.

And, for what its worth, and to keep this semi on topic, I’m not signing the petition.

amdream on
January 19th, 2006 8:22 pm

As a contactor, I’ve done a fair amount of work for a basketball team; its players; coaches and etc.
A coach, who recently relocated to another northwest city was waxing philosophical one day and mentioned that he wanted no more than 3 of 5 starters to have “made their money”. I believe he meant that 4 time all star **cough** Vin Baker **cough** at a guaranteed 87 mil, 7 yrs has little upside, whereas the kids chasing that contract have huge upside.
So, replacement level minor league guys, ummm no.
Overpriced aging veterans, ummm no.
Develop or trade for guys who are just about, ( but not yet ), going to “make their money”? Heck yeah.
Is Bavasi good at this? Freddy, yes, he was about to ‘make his money’. Reed, yes, he won’t ‘make his noney’ for a while.
Franklin needed killin. Ichiro should ‘make his money’.
I give Bavast a B.

eponymous coward on
January 19th, 2006 9:15 pm

Basic summary: We donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have good enough tools to judge a GM that we should speak with absolute certainty in the face of contradictary results.

Yeah, that’s fair.

The problem I see is that the argument of “hey, he built the Angels into a WOLRD SERIES CHAMPION through the farm system” seems pretty spurious. The Angels net haul of glory from 1994-2003 is ONE World Series year as a wild card, and getting to a one game playoff in 1995. That’s it. Oh, and they were below .500 the year before AND the year after their big year- the 3 year period of 2001-2003 is BELOW .500. So, uh, how exactly is this some sort of amazing dynasty he built as opposed to “yeah, he managed to get some idecent talent through his minor league system, but this was nothing special”?

Brian Rust on
January 19th, 2006 11:06 pm

I truly appreciate Dave’s acknowledgement that Bavasi and his baseball people might know more about the players they deal with than us, the informed general public. That is not to say they are “smarter” (although that could well be the case), only that they have access to information we simply do not have.

In the case of IbaÃƒÂ±ez, the information the M’s relied on (his suitability for Safeco) was available to a mere fan, had he observed IbaÃƒÂ±ez carefully and with a well-trained eye. On the other hand, there also are cases like Sexson, whose signing was declared “bad” in this space on balance primarily because of the risk of his shoulder. I think one should assume in this case that Bavasi possessed critical information NOT available to us, such as actual radiographic images of the shoulder and qualified medical interpretation of the same.

It is unfair, as Evan states in #9, to judge a GM’s moves on information that comes to light after the fact. But we flatter ourselves when we deride decisions based only on what we know. That’s where the expertise of “baseball people” comes in: to identify clues that tell a smart GM whether a player is likely to come in closer to one tail or the other of the bell curve that is his statistical projection.

Neither GMs nor poker players are successful in the long run because they have “special precognative ability” as Evan says in his poker example in #21. Bad beats happen to good players with some regularity. But merely knowing the odds — the numbers — does not make a stat geek into a Doyle Brunson. It’s knowing what is not in the numbers — knowing the tells — that gets you to the final table.

So I’m not signing the petition either. Bavasi has made some bad bets (Speizio, Aurilia), suffered some bad beats (Olivo, Beltre), hit some good flops (Morse, Harris), played some tough cards (Boone, Olerud) and won some decent pots (Sexson, IbaÃƒÂ±ez, Guardado). But it is pretty clear he enters the season with a short stack, and we’ll have to see what comes up on the 2006 flop. Maybe it’ll be just good enough he can go all in.

terry on
January 20th, 2006 4:17 am

#11….im curious…just how much is 16 starts worth? Thats essentially what the M’s were trading the Chisox when the Gracia trade went down. You cant include Garcia’s performance last year in the analysis of the trade because it was paid for by a contract that the M’s didnt tender (and apparently had NO desire to tender).

Frankly, Reed for 16 starts that wouldve been meaningless for the M’s makes the deal a good one…in hindsight, foresight, right sight, left sight, never never forever sight……

You can argue that they made a poor judgement by deciding not to resign Garcia but that is a differrent issue. They decided he was a turd and they traded his last 16 starts as an M for a good return.

mln on
January 20th, 2006 4:06 pm

Any GM that signs a gritty, scrappy, local star like Willie F. Bloomquist to a 2-year deal can’t be that bad.

If only Bavasi had signed Willie to a lifetime contract. Now that would put him in the same league as Billy Beane and Theo Epstein.

John D. on
January 21st, 2006 2:19 pm

Re: IBANEZ – Not eveyone thinks the Mariners sighned him because they may have known something that others didn’t know.
Some think that the reason the Mariners signed him (overpayed and signed him before he was non-tendered *) was so they had an excuse not to go after the expensive VLADIMIR GUERRERO.
_________
*Ibanez cost the Mariners a draft choice. Had the Mariners been patient, and signed him after the date for tendering contracts–C.W. says that KC was not going to offer him one–he would have cost us nothing.

msb on
January 21st, 2006 4:44 pm

Kansas City Star, October 9, 2003
The Royals’ desire to retain free agents Raul Ibanez and Joe Randa stops short of a willingness to offer arbitration to either player. “These are players we need to move quickly on,” general manager Allard Baird confirmed. “So, I don’t see us offering arbitration to Raul and Joe.”

Seattle Times November 13, 2003
In the weeks leading up to the current general-manager meetings in Phoenix and the opening of the free-agent signing period, there was considerable speculation Seattle would bid for Vladimir Guerrero. However, Bill Bavasi, the Mariners’ new GM, indicated this week that he prefers to spread his free-agent expenditures around, “rather than putting them in one basket.”

Seattle Times November 19, 2003
While the Mariners were thought to have made bringing back Ibanez a priority for some time, the possibility seemingly gained impetus 10 days ago when he joined a handful of his former Mariners teammates in Puerto Rico for a celebration for Edgar Martinez, who signed a one-year deal with the Mariners on Nov. 4.

The Associated Press November 20, 2003
Ibanez hit .294 with 42 homers and 193 RBIs for Kansas City over the last two years after coming to the Royals from Seattle as a free agent. He made $3 million last season amd wanted $15 million over three years to stay. The team was believed to have offered him two years for $8 million, with an option for a third year. “We wanted to keep Raul,” general manager Allard Baird said. “That was our first priority. But as things turned out, it was just not a good (financial) fit for us.”

The draft picks are something of a bonus because the Royals hadn’t planned to offer arbitration to Ibanez before the Dec. 7 deadline. That means they would not have received compensation if he signed elsewhere after that. “I’m surprised about the draft picks,” Baird said. “That’s a real plus for us because now we have a little flexibility in case we want to sign someone before Dec. 7.”

The Mariners chose to forfeit their top pick because several other clubs were pursuing Ibanez, including the Dodgers, Giants, Brewers and Mets.

eponymous coward on
January 24th, 2006 11:29 am

On my point about Bavasi and trading:

The M’s don’t seem very interested in doing anything with trades other than: